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Using Global Northern, non‐Jewish, female, highly skilled partners and spouses of Israeli Jewish citizens in Israel as a case study, and depicting their interactions with bureaucracy, integration into the labour market, gendered aspects of integration and clashes between self‐perception and ascription this paper teases out that, despite its specificity, the case of Israel allows forming conclusions about the precariousness of a class of presumed privileged migrants. The central finding is that Global Northerners experience a status deprivation, which includes deskilling and social marginalization. This nexus was experienced as limiting personal agency, which allows for questioning their presumed status of privileged migrants; it concurrently underscores the importance of the analytically difficult and diffuse nexus of personality and agency. The ethnographic data demonstrates that individuals coped with the challenges differently, suggesting that specific personalities and intra‐ and interpersonal resourcefulness underpin individual resilience thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship emphasizes differences among ethnic groups' internal migration patterns. Yet, with few exceptions, research has focused on the Anglo-American world, neglecting experiences from other regions. This paper is part of a larger research project that studies mobility among the Arab minority in Israel and its driving forces. In this paper we examine patterns of internal migration by analysing the propensity to migrate as well as migrants' individual and social characteristics. First, we survey the theoretical backdrop that is suggested by recent geographic literature on internal migration among ethnic and racial minorities, including native groups. Second, we contextualize the group studied, providing necessary background information on the political, socio-economic and demographic conditions of Arabs in Israel. We briefly discuss attributes that are - or have been - potential hindering factors to Arab mobility in the Jewish state. Finally, we analyse 1995 national census data at the micro scale and provide a basis for future explanations of the phenomenon. We conclude by outlying some future directions in the study of internal migration of minorities in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we contribute to the study of immigrants’ integration into the host society by focusing on two subjective indicators of integration: life satisfaction and sense of belonging. The analysis is performed on post‐1990 immigrants in Israel with data obtained from the ‘Immigrant Survey’ conducted by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The findings show that while life satisfaction is affected by all forms of incorporation (structural, acculturation, identificational), immigrants’ sense of belonging to Israeli society seems mainly related to processes of identity re‐definition in the host society, and mostly determined by strength of Jewish identity, ideological motives for going to Israel, and the ways by which immigrants perceive they are defined by Israelis (as a member of the majority group or as a member of an ethnic group). The results also reveal that when utilizing SEM procedure for estimating simultaneous effects of both subjective measures of assimilation, sense of belonging to the new society strongly affects immigrants’ life satisfaction but not the other way around. We discuss the findings and their meaning in light of theory and within the context of Israeli society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their impressive patterns of economic mobility and generally successful adaptation into Western host societies, Israeli emigrants frequently view their stay abroad through the perspective of Zionism. As such, they express ambivalence about their presence on foreign soil. They seldom describe themselves as host country nationals, commonly socialize with other Israelis, frequently describe their intentions to return home, and often do so. However, recent events may challenge this outlook. During the 1990s, Israel's significant demographic and economic growth, relatively peaceful relations with neighbouring countries and increasingly globalized economy had the effect of lessening the stigma on going abroad. Then, since the fall of 2000, Israel has been rocked by the Al Aksa Intifada, as well as a major recession. These events have made life more difficult for Israelis. Accordingly, conditions of the last several years can be seen as altering Israelis' motives for emigration and simultaneously shifting the probability of return among those already overseas. While a topic of interest in its own right, the experience of Israeli emigrants since late 2000 also offers a natural experiment for evaluating how theories about migrant transnationalism consider the consequences of specific events upon relations with citizens abroad. This paper relies on in-depth interviews and other data sources to explore Israeli emigrants' views about remaining in host societies versus returning to Israel since late 2000. In so doing, it considers how emigrants evaluate potential benefits, costs and feelings of identification associated with residence overseas versus Israel. The paper also seeks more general insights into how relations between migrants and the country of origin are altered when events affect political and economic conditions in the country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrant professionals comprise a growing segment within current migration waves, but the determinants of successful transnational skill transfer are poorly understood. In this paper, I offer a framework for the evaluation of these determinants, drawing upon three empirical studies among immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union in Israel. I start by describing the social context of immigrant integration, including policies aimed at assisting skilled immigrants to get a fresh start on the local labour market. Next, I reflect on the nature of various professions in terms of their cultural and linguistic dependency, with the ensuing adaptive potential upon migration. I also tap into the main macro-economic and institutional characteristics of the host society that may facilitate or hinder the initial entry and subsequent mobility of immigrant professionals within local organizations. I apply this analytical frame to the discussion of Israeli studies among immigrant professionals who represent three different points on the scale of cultural dependency: engineers (technical occupation), physicians (combining standard medical training with cultural skills) and schoolteachers (most dependent on language and local cultural codes). In every case, the resulting success or failure of occupational continuity reflects a complex interplay of context-bound and individual factors, aggravated by the small size and rapid saturation of the local labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines theoretical propositions regarding the social mechanisms that produce hostility and discriminatory attitudes towards out-group populations. Specifically, we compare the effect of perceptions of socio-economic and national threats, social contact and prejudice on social distance expressed towards labour migrants. To do so, we examine exclusionary views held by majority and minority groups (Jews and Arabs) towards non-Jewish labour migrants in Israel. Data analysis is based on a survey of the adult Israeli population based on a stratified sample of 1,342 respondents, conducted in Israel in 2007. Altogether, our results show that Israelis (both Jews and Arabs) are resistant to accepting and integrating foreigners into Israeli society. Among Jews, this is because the incorporation of non-Jews challenges the definition of Israel as a Jewish state and poses a threat to the homogeneity of the nation. Among Arabs, this is probably due to threat and competition over resources. The meanings of the findings are discussed within the unique ethno-national context of Israeli society and in light of sociological theories on ethnic exclusionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1990s, Israel has become a new destination for Chinese migrant workers. In the view of many studies conducted in Israel, the Chinese migrant workers are often a neglected and almost invisible group. The purpose of this paper is to explore the initiation of this migration trend and its social consequences. The major discussion of this study focuses on how the whole process of migration is carried out at the interface between legality and illegality. Research in the sending area suggests that the urgent need for manual labour in Israel provides possibilities to attract both documented and undocumented migrant workers and therefore turns labour transportation into a profitable business. Although no one agrees that undocumented working activities should continue, all of the factors interact and result in a permissive situation allowing this particular combination of the illegal but licit to persist in transnational labour migration. More than anything else, this micro-level study attempts to find the true story from the individual voices of local people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the experience of re-migration. It uses the narratives of 32 adults, emigrants from Israel who intended to stay abroad permanently, but eventually returned, to explore central themes. Among the themes which emerged from the narratives are language and identity, idealization and reality, and the role of the wider social ethos in affecting the personal experiences of first migration and return. The paper then analyzes these narratives in light of two central models: Berry's acculturation model, and Sussman's cultural identity model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine and compare the ethnic identity of the Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the process of change in ethnic identity among the new immigrants from the FSU. This analysis considers the role of the kibbutz as the first experience of Jewish community in their lives, as well as the location of the first phase of their process of absorption and resocialization into new and unfamiliar surroundings. The data are drawn through a longitudinal research design, with a pre- and post-analysis of changes in the ethnicity of migrants studied from their arrival on the Israeli kibbutz until the completion of the five-month kibbutz programme. We found that pre-migration Soviet Jews defined their ethnicity as a discriminated national minority with a weak symbolic ethnicity content. The ambivalent nature of the ethnicity of Jews while in the FSU was expressed in the fact that although a majority were deculturized from traditional dimensions of Jewish life, they nevertheless felt they belonged to a specific ethnic group. Post-migration ethnicity was found to be remarkably altered; the former ambivalence was dissolved. On the macro-level, membership in the economically and politically successful Russian-speaking group of Israeli society is a source of self esteem, rather than a sign of shameful otherness. On the micro-level of ethnicity, the encounter in the initial phase of absorption in Israel, within the kibbutz Jewish community, often demands a re-examination of their private concept of Jewishness, serving as a first step in resolving their ambivalent ethnic identity. Consequently, their new ethnic identity may now well have weaker boundaries, but a more positive (non-alienating) content than that left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with identity patterns among the 1990s immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel. It presents the complex set of identity types among immigrants in the context of their cultural and sociodemographic characteristics and their dynamic relationships with the Israeli host society. The findings show that immigrants from the FSU in Israel form a distinct ethnic group within the Israeli social and cultural fabric. This is reflected in their closed social networks, ethnic information sources, strong desire to maintain ethnic-cultural continuity, and the fact that the ethnic component (Jew from the FSU or immigrant from the FSU) is central for self-identification. However, ethnic formation among these immigrants is not a reactive-oriented identity, which is mainly generated by alienation from the host society, it is rather an instrumentalized ethnicity, which is the outcome of ethnic-cultural pride and pragmatic considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]